IIRC Britain (well, England) didn’t even try too hard, deciding to enter a Devon County Wanderers side. I think the modern equivalent would be if the US sent a local community college basketball team instead of the Dream Team.
Leading on from this question: What were the standards of the Olympic rugby sides in 1920 and 1924? Anywhere near a representative national side?
I took part in a poll recently about which sport should be made an Olympic sport. (The poll was on the Washington Post web page IIRC, so I don’t think it has a whole lot of merit.) Anywho, rugby finished second to Ultimate Frisbee in the poll. Of course, the only thing that brought the poll to my attention was a chain e-mail that was making its rounds through the electronically linked Ultimate community. This may have skewed the poll a bit.
There were only three teams that competed in the 1924 Rugby competition: USA, France, and Romania.
France beat Romania 59-3. USA beat Romania 39-0.
(Although I have seen other scores.) The US beat France 17-3 (or thereabouts) for the gold medal.
The US team came from Stanford, according to this article.
http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/Curb/2471/1924_olympics_2.html
A proposal has just been presenteted to the IOC by the International Rugby Board for Rugby’s inclusion in the 2008 Olympics. This was reported as being “recived well”.
Woo Hoo! I guess I’d better quit smoking and start running if I want a shot at the team.